INDIA BY TRAIN
How one woman changed her view of a country over four months and 40,000 kilometres,
Wailing brakes had barely brought the passenger train to a halt when briefcases and hemp bags were tossed through the windows beside me, their owners attempting to save themselves a seat. A baby was thrust into my lap through the emergency exit as her parents tore down the length of the carriage and shoved through the door.
When I was 9 years old, my parents moved from England to Madras, to settle back in their hometown, but the leap was too great and we soon hot-footed it back home to the land of rain and weak tea. Twenty years later, after reading that India’s booming domestic airlines could now reach more than 80 cities, I decided it was time to explore the motherland.
Rather than trampling across the subcontinent leaving a Goliath-sized carbon footprint behind me, I decided to travel by train. As one of the largest civilian employers in the world, transporting 20 million passengers along 65,000 kilometres of track each day, I knew that Indian Railways would have a few tales to tell. Taking a page out of Jules Verne’s classic tale, I began my journey around India in 80 trains.
I arrived in Madras (now Chennai) with an outdated railway map, a flimsy IndRail pass and one Norwegian photographer in tow. The Darjeeling Limited this was not. I had returned with some reticence. From memory, India was a chauvinistic country of conmen. No one gave without expecting something in return. Perhaps by travelling beyond packed cities, I would find something better that would change my mind.
One of my first, and favourite journeys, was up the Konkan coast: the doors flung open, the train inching past creeper-covered shrines, temples, churches and houses the colour of sugared almonds, flanked by bending palms. Peace prevailed in the carriage, interrupted by the drone of “Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky,” which, as it neared, separated into chai (coffee) punctuated with clanks from the chaiwallah’s vat.
Up in the cool hills of West Bengal, bundled in scarves and gloves, we waited for the Darjeeling toy train in a shack, tearing apart fried sweet Tibetan flatbreads dipped in thupa — a rich, spicy soup. In the distance, Kanchenjunga’s snowy tip poked through a halo of cloud. The train rolled past like a Disneyland carriage choo-chooing its way between Main St. and Frontierland.
Over four months and 40,000 kilometres, the Indian Railways became my home, its passengers my surrogate family. On a 28-hour journey from Delhi to Chennai, I shared a compartment with a government official. The town of Ledo in Assam, the easternmost tip of the railways, came up in conversation and the secretary offered to organize a trip there. After swapping details, a lady in the ad- joining compartment glanced across. “All train talk,” she said.
Four weeks later, we arrived in Assam and the detective superintendent of police greeted us and housed us for free. If this was what “train talk” meant, I certainly approved.
Toward the end of the journey, my feelings were not the only thing that had changed. Peeling fruit and devouring books in the open doorways of trains had roasted my skin to a Brazil-nut brown. Once straight and shoulder-length, my hair hung in curls down my back. I had long since abandoned hand gel and plastic cutlery. My skinny jeans were baggy, my rucksack a library of Amartya Sen, Arundhati Roy and William Dalrymple. As train 80, the Charminar Express, pulled into Chennai Central, I jumped down onto the platform and took stock of my belongings: a brass Buddha from Gangtok in the north; coal from Ledo in the east; seashells from Dwarka in the west; mosquito bites from everywhere and a thumping heart overflowing with stories.
Had I flown around India in 80 planes, I would have paid extra for the privilege of tedious check-ins and bags of peanuts. I would have missed the salt mounds in Gujarat, the half-buried shrines in Orchha, dangling over the highest bridge on the Konkan coast and spitting tea in Assam. Indian Railways deserved its title as the Lifeline of a Nation — a nation that wasn’t such a bad place after all. Monisha Rajesh is the author of Around India in 80 Trains, published by Nicholas Brealey.